Kournikova virus inspires copy-cat spammers - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Kournikova virus inspires copy-cat spammers

By Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia
February 19, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/Kournikova-virus-inspires-copy-cat-spammers/0,139023165,120204826,00.htm

Security experts say last week's 'Anna Kournikova' virus may be the inspiration behind novice virus writers who've now jumped on the spamming bandwagon.

An unknown number of recipients were spammed over the weekend with what appears to be an amateur's attempt to propagate a new virus.

Intending perhaps to prey on computer users' sensitivity following the recent spread of the Kournikova virus, the sender spoofed the email address of virus protection provider Symantec and sent a message with the subject "virus warning!!!".

However, the bungled virus - created with the same structure kit as the virus inspired by Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova - did not have the destructive impact intended.

Instead, the culprit ended up sending the virus code rather then unleashing the virus itself.

"It could be that the person was not that technically literate," Symantec's Australian general manager John Donovan told ZDNet.

Recipients were at "no risk," he added.

"It's quite likely that someone stuffed up on the sender's part," Trend Micro's Andy Liou agreed, suggesting that the spammer had tried to send the virus as an attachment.

"My best guess is that it was a virus and when it tried to get through the email server [the server] tried to clean out the virus and managed to corrupt the email message," Liou added.

The email was sent from a spammer at kscable.com.

"There's not a lot we can do about it," Symantec's Donovan said.